Sometimes serious, sometimes funny, always trying to be warmth and light, focuses on parenting, and the unique struggles of raising a large Catholic family in the modern age. Updates on Sunday, Tuesday and Friday...and sometimes more!

Friday, November 30, 2012

A Little Story

Everyone knows the story of Joseph and Mary going to Bethlehem and being unable to find a place to stay. Everyone thinks they'd recognize the dire need of a husband with his wife, heavy with child. However, we need only look back to the poor mother who lost her two sons in the water of Hurricane Sandy to see, we are frightened creatures who often shut doors we should not. Yes, all of us are just as capable of saying, "there is no room at the inn."

How do I know?

This past week, we lost a baby at what would have been 8 weeks. Honestly, I'd spent the first three weeks of knowing saying to God, "You've Got to be Kidding!" I'm 46! We have no room in the van. We have a large house but there's no room in the house! I tried playing kid tetris, shuffling children in the bedrooms. I didn't want to wrap around the idea that our lives would be reordered yet again, that at least three more years of diapers loomed. Taxes, college, carseats... it wasn't my most generous moment as a woman of faith or a mother.

But I was very grateful for the gift of the wisdom and teachings of our Church. That let me march forward, take my vitamin, schedule the appointment with the doctor and go on with life. I'd come around I told myself. And every once in a while, there was a bounce in my step, a giggle under my words as I managed the brood and their needs. But also every once in a while, there was the feeling of the bite of the world. "I'm overwhelmed." I told God. "I know we're supposed to love in abundance and be lavish and generous and open to life like you...." but then my voice would crack in my head, "I'm not you!" and the world felt very dark indeed. I kept opening and shutting the door in my heart even as I held the child in my womb. I would have to wedge it open.

God was very humorous, "So Sherry, ten was fine but eleven too many?" "Okay." (It was hard to argue). But it was still only duty, not a joyful one. I'd be fighting this for a while I could tell despite many resolutions in my head to not fight. And then I felt honestly, rather lost. This was not a happy place to be, to know that my will was fighting even as I obeyed. There was never a danger to this baby, she was always coming, but then Tuesday, I saw her.

Her heart was slow....like mine.

I was miscarrying. Suddenly every step, every heart beat forward was one step away from a healthy child, to a dying one. Suddenly, I was willing her to stay alive, begging her to stay. I've had two other miscarriages, but this one hit harder than the other two or maybe like labor pains, I've forgotten. It's probably a mixture of both.

Like any mother who must walk to the end of a miscarriage, I felt all the crazy unfamiliar hard musings. We hadn't even told anyone yet. How to explain a loss we hadn't yet pronounced as a gift? Sadness...I held her but not as fully in my heart. We should have screamed about her to the world. We should have celebrated her while she was here! There was shame over the twinge of relief that the part of me that didn't want more, didn't have more...embarrassment at not wanting more of God's heart in my life....and hurt at the real knowledge that when the knock came to my door. I didn't answer, or at least not well. Guilt --could I have done something or not done something to keep this one here?

Wednesday I took my son to basketball practice and went to the adoration chapel to clear my head, to cry, to complain, to pray the baby would be okay, that somehow, this would all just be a blip, a hiccup in the pregnancy. I didn't get to make that prayer. I fell asleep. Three times. (It's warm, it's quiet, it's peaceful and as a dear priest told me, if you fall asleep in Adoration, you're just like the apostles, and perhaps God knew you needed the rest). As I was preparing to leave to go back to the gym, I found a guide for adoration I'd never seen. Reading it, I felt like I'd somehow missed what I was supposed to do in Adoration...rather like how I missed what to do during this pregnancy.

Then Thursday, I went back to the doctors. The baby did not have a heart rate anymore. She was smaller than she'd been on Tuesday. I could see the difference. I remember seeing the screen with her heart rate on it, and knowing then, the heart rate was wrong before they'd said anything. The dramatic in me likes to think she died when I was sleeping in Adoration, that even broken and failing, I'd brought her to where she should be. And in doing so, she did the same for me.

I can't promise my heart will remain a stable stable for the rest of my life, but for only 8 weeks, she was a masterful instructor in the purpose of Advent. I'll remember her, and therefore her lessons. We are to be a people waiting in joyful hope. That is how life and being pregnant should be, a source of light and warmth in a thorny cold dark world of business and tasks and difficulty. We told our children. We told our parents. We named the baby, Kateri Joy, Katie Joy for short. It fits her, it fits the season we are about to celebrate and I think her name is musical. One of my daughters liked it so much, she said she'd name her daughter the same. She has never voiced the idea that she would have children before.

When we get to Heaven, we will be asked, "How many did you bring?" like the servants who were to invest the talents and multiply the Master's fortunes. I now have another lobbyist in Heaven to get all of us there. She's an expert at wedging open the doors of hearts.

P.S. The perfect P.S, her due date was July 14th, it is apparently, Saint Kateri's feast day...I just found that out.

I am so sorry for your loss, Sherry. Please be assured of my prayers for you and your family during this difficult time. Your post was so beautiful and honest--your beautiful Kateri has a beautiful mom :)

Thank you for sharing your heart. God bless you, your husband, all your children. May peace flood your heart when you need it the most, may you feel Mary's loving Mantle wrap around you when your tears are the heaviest. May Jesus hold little Kateri Joy on his lap until you meet her in heaven.

The Chocolate Brain behind the Blog

My name is Sherry Antonetti. I write about the trials and humor of raising children, reflection articles on the Catholic faith lived, and profiles of everyday holiness. Why do I write on these things? To discover the deeper beauty of the martyrdom lived out moment by moment, and to avoid being discouraged or bogged down by minutia. Living out one's faith is an incremental experience of errands, stories, to do lists and details, it is not that we got to everything, but how we treated everyone in the process of trying to get to everything that reveals how much we live in the Holy Spirit, or how much we are estranged.

FAQ'S about this blog, a fabricated interview with footnotes.

Hi! Welcome to my blog. You can read my stuff here and at new.catholicmom.com. I publish there on Thursdays, with Small Successes!

FAQ's about this blog, a fabricated interview*

Q. Why CHOCOLATE FOR YOUR BRAIN?

A. You've heard of Chicken Soup for your Soul...well this is a similar principle. Chocolate, like laughter, produces endorphins in the brain, pleasant feelings, and that's what this blog is supposed to do.

Also, I have a pet theory about Comedy, that Good Humor is like a Chocolate Bar. It contains bits of nuts and a nougat of truth. The chocolate coating makes it go down easier, because no one wants to eat a bar of pure nougat.

Q. Why didn't you name your blog Chocolate for Your Brain in the URL?

A. Because I was new to the blogiverse and did not comprehend at that point how to make a blog much less market it, and therefore, I've just stayed with that URL which promotes my name but unfortunately tells the reader nothing about my blog or its clever title.

Q. It's your blog, why not change?

A. I'm a conservative Catholic, according to the news media, I fear change.

Q. That was funny! How do I leave a comment?

A. Scroll down to the bottom of the posted blog piece. It should look like this:

Q. How can I know if there's new stuff other than when you say you'll post?

A. At the bottom of the page, you'll see Subscribe to: Posts (Atom) Click on it and you can receive automatic email updates that the blog has been updated. I do promise to update it on Sunday, Tuesday and Friday otherwise, so you can just check those times if you'ld rather.

Q. Why do you write a blog, it's not like you don't have other things to tend to, other things to do?

A. I like writing. I like writing to make people laugh. It's good practice for my brain. Consider these stories mental gymnastics, less time consuming than soduku and more fun.

Q. Why aren't all of your articles from the Beaumont Enterprise or Catholic Standard linked?

A. What a thoughtful and observant question! Most of the pieces I've written for both of these publications were not posted on their websites, so I have no links to post. But I've also been at this for now 7 years, so if I linked everything, there would be nothing but links and that gets tedious.Thanks for letting me clear that up.

Q. Aren't I you?

A. Well, yes. But this format made it so much easier to explain everything. Thank you for your time, that's all the questions for today folks.

Sherry, you're doing a heck of a job!

Editor's note from the *. Despite similarities --monitoring communications and fabricating interviews, this blog is NOT affiliated with FEMA in any way.

Despite being satirical on occasion against the current congress and administraiton, this site HAS not been fact checked by CNN.

This blog is not a construct of FOX news, talk radio or a limb of the Republican party or any vast right wing conspiracy.

Thoughts expressed here are my own and not underwritten by the insurance agencies or any other soul free corporations. (Believe me, I'd know if I was being paid).

WAXY CHEAP CHOCOLATE SOLD AT HOLIDAY TIMES IN THE PHARMACY

I work and I write and I suffer but don't feel any guilt about it because You are worth it.

No.No. You don't have to get me anything for Christmas either.

Why?

Because I love you. Not just you but the whole Blogosphere and the whole Blogging world. That's right, I'm just a sentimental ball of mush, sort of like a melted whopper you find underneath the car seat because some kid in the Halloween Candy screening process found and rejected a piece without first offering the offending Chocolate to his mother.

I feel so used.

NOTE: CHOCOLATE FOR YOUR BRAIN UPDATES on Sunday, Tuesday and Friday! Updates are guaranteed by 5:00 pm that day or your money back. What's that? You didn't pay? Wait.... How does this thing work?

Let me know how I'm doing folks! You can email me at sherryantonettiwrites@yahoo.com

Quotables from Sherry's Brain

On pain...

"I don't need anesthesia if I can still crack a joke."

On the absurdity of everyday minutia...

"What Would Flannery O'Connor do?"

On Excellence where ever it is pronounced by an official, movies, politics, books, policies, people...

"If this is the best there is, then man are we in trouble."

On viewing my own karotype after a DNA screening test...

"My geneotype came back normal so all my faults are of my own doing."

On humor:

"Laughter is priceless but don't worry, all of this blog is free."

On what God will say to me one day...

"I gave you all these people, all these gifts. What were you doing blogging away time on the internet?"

My E-Book On Sale!

Click on this to get your copy of The Book of Helen autographed!

WRITING MY NEXT BOOK

The working title is The Book of Penelope.
Continuing the story, we will discover the internal odyssey the wife of Odysseus took from the day he left her side until she finally reinvited him into her heart.
Currently at 75K...and counting. Goal 500 words a day. Stay tuned...

Prayer to the Holy Spirit by Cardinal Mercier

O Holy Spirit, beloved of my soul, I adore You.
Enlighten me, guide me, strengthen me, console me.
Tell me what I should do; give me Your orders.
I promise to submit myself to all that You desire of me and to accept all that You permit to happen to me. Let me only know Your Will.